Tuesday, April 2, 2013

I think I’m a little autistic.This might explain why, at the Hollywood
Transit Center platform, I was watching the highway traffic - and enjoying
it.In that spot, nothing but the Max
tracks and a short wall separates you from the river of cars.The river was flowing freely this morning,
and the air was cool, and payday is getting close.The blur of racing metal was soothing.

When a Max train pulled in, I looked
into it and saw a row of somber faces. All
but two or three riders were interacting with their devices.I think I look like they do when I’m ill, or after a
bad argument – not too often, I think.Not
every day. Do I?

Why, in a time when you can immediately
get and hear and see anything in the world on your mobile device, is the result a peanut gallery of blahs and blues?Laurel and Hardy movies, symphonies, brilliant lectures, a conversation
with a friend on the other side of the world – all of these are at our
fingertips.The ride to work can be a vacation,
an escape from the crushing blankness, if that’s what’s bothering you, Bunky.

Instead, my esteemed fellow riders appear to
endure a circle of hell reserved for bad party guests, doomed to listen to
white noise on their earbuds forever.But
I’m interpreting the facial expressions and body language of strangers.They’re in a setting where they’re inclined
to express as little as possible.No doubt
my insight is mostly fantasy.

Inside the train, looking around again, I don’t believe this. A couple is laughing.Joking with each other.Breaking all the morning Max rules.How bizarre!But they’re not really a couple – an old white guy in mud spattered
overalls and a middle aged Latina in office clothes.

I’m sweating.Are we in a nightclub? We’re in a nightclub, that’s it, a floating nightclub, way, way after
hours.

Breathe. Slow down.The truth will come through.There it is now. Between bouts of
hilarity the masks appear. The protection. The farmer is Grim Acceptance, his girlfriend
is Resignation, and the other couple is Exhaustion and Discomfort.So, all is well.

Soon they all calmed down and I calmed down and we rejoined the rest
of us, saving ourselves for the important day ahead.

A big fella snored, loudly and too quickly.That's more like it. An emergency nap, for sure, and a tough
log he was sawing.His head fell back and
his chest heaved with a sharp jerk on each breath as if he were climbing at
10,000 feet.It’s a good thing he was
lying down.Every minute or so his eyes
would open, he'd snort and instantly drop back into the nod.

The rest of us kindly let him have his
restless rest.

The train plunged into the Sunset
Tunnel.The small lights on the tunnel wall were blipping by,
lulling me.

About Me

ABOUT ME
Since you're dying to know:
I worked as a reader and then as story editor for ITC, a (defunct) TV movie company in Studio City, California.
I wrote a few film reviews that Urb magazine published when it was just getting off the ground.
I've completed a half-dozen film scripts; number seven is an eco-thriller with a spiritual theme that will send multitudes into transports of ecstasy.
I make a living as a business writer in the dynamic and unpredictable field of insurance.
I've been lucky enough to contribute to the pocket-size Free Fun Guides. If you live in the populous parts of Southern California, or in the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle or New York, you should get one and never leave home without it. Web site: www.freefunguides.com
I live in Portland, Oregon with my wife and daughter, where we long for an occasional sunbreak and I drink the world's best coffee, usually black.